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The Ikema dialect of Miyako Island in Okinawa, Japan, has typologically rare word-initial and voiced geminate obstruents (e.g. /vva/ ‘you’, /ffa/ ‘child’, /tta/ ‘tongue’, /badda/ ‘side’). These sounds are marked in two ways: Voicing through geminate obstruents is hard to produce and initial voiceless plosives seem to be difficult to perceive. This study investigated real-time magnetic resonance imaging (rt-MRI) to examine the articulatory settings underlying contrasts between singleton and geminate obstruents. Our analyses of two male speakers’ utterances showed the following five characteristics: (i) geminate obstruents in Ikema have longer duration of articulatory constrictions regardless of position and consonant types; (ii) the voiced alveolar plosive geminate /dd/ is articulated with a larger linguopalatal contact than its singleton counterpart but such difference depends on the speaker for the voiceless plosive pair /tt/–/t/ and the fricative pairs /ss/–/s/ and /zz/–/z/; (iii) alveolar voiceless plosives /t/ and /tt/ have a greater degree of linguopalatal contact than their voiced counterparts /d/ and /dd/, respectively, but fricatives show inter-speaker variation; (iv) fricatives do not show any systematic difference in degree of (midsagittal) linguopalatal contact between geminates and singletons, or between voiceless and voiced consonants; and (v) voiced geminate obstruents are accompanied by pharyngeal expansion for both speakers and by lowering the larynx for one speaker, and never by lowering of the velum. We also observed that voiced fricatives tend to realize as affricates, which we interpret as part of the articulatory adjustments for (full) voicing of phonologically voiced geminate fricatives.

The Baima language (/pêkê/, Chinese 白马语 báimăyŭ, ISO-639 code bqh) is a little-studied Tibeto-Burman (Bodic or Himalayish) language spoken in the southwestern part of the People’s Republic of China. Approximately 10,000 people, who traditionally reside in three counties in Sichuan Province (Pingwu 平武, Songpan 松潘 (in Written Tibetan, hereafter WT, zung chu), and Jiuzhaigou 九寨沟 (WT gzi rtsa sde dgu), and in one county in Gansu Province (Wenxian 文县), speak the Baima language (see Sichuan Sheng Minzu Yanjiusuo 1980, Zeng & Xiao 1987), see Figure 1.1 The largest concentrations of Baima speakers are in Baima Township (白马乡, Baima /tôpû/) of Pingwu County, and in Tielou Township (铁楼乡) of Wenxian County.

In this study, we test whether anticipatory Vowel-to-Vowel coarticulation varies with age in the speech of 246 adult French speakers aged between 20 and 93. The relationship between coarticulation and the known age-related change in speech rate is also investigated. The results show a gradual decrease in the amount of coarticulation for speakers from 20 to mid-50s, followed by a more abrupt decrease for speakers older than 70. For speakers in between, diverse coarticulation profiles emerge. Speech rate is also found to evolve from early to late adulthood and not only for older speakers, it shows a gradual decrease for speakers up to mid-50s and a more abrupt deceleration afterwards. Yet, the relationship between rate and coarticulation is not linear, it appears stronger for the younger speakers, with faster speakers coarticulating more, than for the adults over 70 y.o.a. Results are discussed in relation to possible changes in the parametrization and coordination of speech units at different ages.

International audience; Devoicing is a process whereby a voiced consonant such as /bdg/ is realized as voiceless [ptk]. Some theorists [1,2] propose that this phenomenon is an instance of fortition, or consonant strengthening, especially when it occurs word-initially. This study proposes an in-depth exploration of voicing alternations in word-initial position in five Romance languages (Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian) using large corpora (ca. 1000h of speech) and automatic alignment. Our results show that (i) there is initial devoicing in all languages, and (ii) this devoicing is conditioned by the preceding context. This allows the languages to be divided into those displaying (a) only phrase-initial fortition (Spanish), (b) phrase-initial and post-obstruent fortition (French, Romanian and possibly Italian) and (c) generalized word-initial fortition (Portuguese).

International audience; Voice quality is known to be an important factor for the characterization of a speaker's voice, both in terms of physiological features (mainly laryngeal and supralaryngeal) and of the speaker's habits (sociolinguistic factors). This paper is devoted to one of the main components of voice quality: phonation type. It proposes neural representations of speech followed by a cascade of two binary neural network-based classifiers, one dedicated to the detection of modal and nonmodal vowels, and one for the classification of nonmodal vowels into creaky and breathy types. This approach is evaluated on the spontaneous part of the PTSVOX database, following an expert manual labelling of the data by phonation type. The results of the proposed classifiers reaches on average 85 % accuracy at the framelevel and up to 95 % accuracy at the segment-level. Further research is planned to generalize the classifiers on more contexts and speakers, and thus pave the way for a new workflow aimed at characterizing phonation types.

International audience; This paper introduces an interface that enables the real-time gestural control of intonation in phrases produced by a vocal synthesizer. The melody and timing of a target phrase can be modified by tracing melodic contours on the touch-screen of a mobile tablet. Envisioning this interface as a means for nonnative speakers to practice the intonation of a foreign language, we present a pilot study where native and non-native speakers imitated the pronunciation of French phrases using their voice and the interface, with a visual guide and without. Comparison of resulting F0 curves against the reference contour and a preliminary perceptual assessment of synthesized utterances suggest that for both non-native and native speakers, imitation with the help of a visual guide is comparable in accuracy to vocal imitation, and that timing control was a source of difficulty.

International audience; Purpose: Studies suggest that singers are over-represented in voice clinics and present a high risk ofdeveloping voice disorders. This retrospective study aims to describe the characteristics of 78 singersconsulting a phoniatrician.Methods: In their medical files, data related to age, gender, occupational status, singing training,musical style, voice complaint, diagnosis, voice-quality grading (GRBAS) and treatment were gathered.Results: The patients were mostly female singers (87%). Non-professional singers (semi-professionalincluded) represented 64%, professional singers 25% and students of singing 11%. The majority ofsingers were choristers (27%) and 22% were classical-style/oratorio-style singers. Two-thirds of thepopulation had intensive vocal activity in speech or singing. Vocal endurance, somatosensory signsand difficulties with high pitches were the most frequent symptoms. Among the patients, 79% presentedwith singing-voice disorders with 85% of these having vocal fold lesions. Generally, their speakingvoices were preserved. Vocal-folds nodules were the most prevalent pathology (37%) followed bysulcus (26%) and voice therapy was the main treatment.Conclusions: This study emphasizes the fact that singers have specific voice complaints related totheir voice usage. The high occurrence of sulcus and other congenital-lesion suspicions, unusual in thegeneral population consulting an ENT phoniatrician, seems to be rather specific for singers in agreementwith the literature.

International audience; Tokyo Japanese has a constraint against voiced geminate stops in its native lexicon. The present study investigates whether recently introduced word-medial voiced geminate stops [C1V1C(C)2V2] are differentiated from voiceless geminates and voiced singletons in terms of duration, voicing during closure, and spectral moments of stop release bursts. The findings suggest that the voiceless and voiced singleton stops were clearly differentiated by C2 duration. In contrast, C2 duration of the voiceless and voiced geminate stops was not significantly different. The devoic-ing of the word-medial stops was not only observed in voiced geminates, but voiced singletons also showed devoicing. The duration of the preceding vowel (V1) distinguished the voicing contrast in both singleton and geminate stops. The first four spectral moments of C2 stop release bursts did not distinguish the length and voicing contrasts in stops. These results indicate that, although word-medial voiced geminate stops are fully or partially devoiced, the Tokyo Japanese speakers lengthen the preceding vowels (V1) to maintain a voicing contrast. Production patterns of the voiced gemi-nates are considered in relation to marginal or intermediate phonological contrast.

This study deals with the expression of additive linking in L2 French by adult German learners with two proficiency levels (advanced vs. intermediate). We examine whether crosslinguistic influences are observed in three domains: the frequency and type of additive expressions in discourse, the syntactic integration of additive particles in the utterance and the prosodic contour associated with them. A total of 70 participants (20 French native speakers, 20 German native speakers and 30 German learners of L2 French) performed an oral narrative task elicited via a video clip presenting abundant additive contexts. Our results show that advanced German learners did not experience an L1 transfer in any of the domains analyzed, but instead they show a learner-specific tendency to overmark the contrastive status of the relevant entities in discourse. Yet traces of crosslinguistic influence are visible in intermediate learners&rsquo, choice and frequency of additive means, as well as the preferred position of the particles. All learners seem to have quickly discarded the possibility to mark scope by prosody, in contrast to what they do in their L1. We discuss these findings in the light of the L2 acquisition of cohesive devices in discourse and their interactions with different linguistic levels.

International audience; Identifying characteristics of articulatory impairment in speech motor disorders is complicated due to the timeconsuming nature of kinematic measures. The goal is to explore whether analysing the acoustic signal in terms of total squared changes of Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (TSC_MFCC) and its pattern over time provides sufficient spectral information to distinguish mild and moderate dysarthric French speakers with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson's Disease (PD) from each other and from healthy speakers. Participants produced the vowel-glide sequences /ajajaj/, /ujujuj/, and /wiwiwi/. From the time course of TSC_MFCCs, event-related and global measures were extracted to capture the degree of acoustic change and its variability. In addition, durational measures were obtained. For both mild and moderately impaired PD and ALS speakers, the degree of acoustic change and its variability, averaged over the complete contour, separated PD and ALS speakers from each other and from healthy speakers, especially when producing the sequences /ujujuj/ and /wiwiwi/. Durational measures separated the moderate ALS from healthy and moderate PD speakers. Using the approach on repetitive sequences targeting the lingual and labial articulators to characterize articulatory impairment in speech motor disorders is promising. Findings are discussed against prior findings of articulatory impairment in the populations studied.

To respond to the need of objective screening tools for motor speech disorders (MSD), we present the screening version of a speech assessment protocol (MonPaGe-2.0.s), which is based on semi-automated acoustic and perceptual measures on several speech dimensions in French. We validate the screening tool by testing its sensitivity and specificity and comparing its outcome with external standard assessment tools. The data from 80 patients diagnosed with different types of mild to moderate MSD and 62 healthy test controls were assessed against the normative data obtained on 404 neurotypical speakers, with Deviance Scores computed on seven speech dimensions (voice, speech rate, articulation, prosody, pneumophonatory control, diadochokinetic rate, intelligibility) based on acoustic and perceptual measures. A cut-off of the MonPaGe total deviance score (TotDevS) >2 allowed MSD to be diagnosed with specificity of 95% and an overall sensitivity of 83.8% on all patients pulled, reaching 91% when very mildly impaired patients were excluded. A strong correlation was found between the MonPaGe TotDevS and an external composite perceptual score of MSD provided by six experts. The MonPaGe screening protocol has proven its sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing presence and severity of MSD. Further implementations are needed to complement the characterization of impaired dimensions in order to distinguish subtypes of MSD.

Focus and newness are distinct features. The fact that subconstituents of focus can be given or discourse-old has been pointed out in Selkirk (1984) and Lambrecht (1994). Nevertheless, when it comes to Sentence Focus, it is still common to equate Focus with newness, and to treat SF sentences as necessarily all-new. One of the reasons for such bias is that formally or typologically oriented descriptions of SF tend to analyze only intransitive ‘out of the blue’ SF utterances stemming from elicitation. Based on SF utterances in natural speech in Kakabe, a Western Mande language, the present study shows that in natural speech SF utterances are associated with a rich array of discourse strategies. Accordingly, the discourse properties of the referents inside SF are subject to variation and affect the implementation of the focus-marking. The study also shows how the discourse properties of referents define the distribution of the focus marker in Kakabe.

International audience; Phonologization is a process whereby phonetic substance becomes phonological structure [1]. The process involves at least two steps: (i) a universal phonetic ('automatic') variation becomes a language-specific ('speaker-controlled') pattern, (ii) the language-specific pattern becomes a phonological ('structured') object. This paper will focus on the first step and ask the question of whether three universal phonetic variations of the laryngeal feature of word-final codas (final devoicing, voicelessness assimilation and voicing assimilation) are becoming language-specific patterns in two Romance languages, Romanian and French. Our results suggest that neutralization processes (final devoicing) might be beginning their phonologization process in both French and Romanian whereas assimilation processes (regressive assimilation of voicing and voicelessness) remain universal phonetic tendencies.

International audience; The present study aims to increase our knowledge of Mandarin lexical tones in fluent speech, more specifically their occurrence frequency distributions and their duration patterns. First, the occurrence frequency of each lexical tone was computed in a large speech corpus (∼ 220 hours). Then the duration of each lexical tone, as well as the impact of word length, syllable position and the prosodic position were investigated. Overall, results show that Tone 3 tends to have the longest duration among all lexical tones. Nonetheless, the factors word length, syllable position and prosodic position are found to impact tone duration. Monosyllabic words exhibit tone durations closer to those of word-final syllables (especially for disyllabic words) than to other syllable positions. Moreover, tone duration tends to be the longest at word's right boundary in Mandarin, regardless of word length. An effect of prosodic position is also found: the duration of Mandarin lexical tones tends to increase with higher prosodic level. Tone durations are the longest in phrasefinal position, followed by word-final position and word-medial position, regardless of the tone nature.

Is word-final schwa in Standard French a “phonetic lubricant”? Schwa is a weak or reduced vowel noted [ə], alternating with zero and limited to unstressed syllables. In Standard French, it can appear word-internally or word-finally. In this paper, we present an extended study of word-final schwa, and more precisely about its role as a “phonetic lubricant” (Purse 2019). Is word-final schwa really a lubricant? Does it indeed play a role at a purely phonetic level? To answer these questions, we used three large corpora of French containing more than 110 hours of speech to establish the presence of word-final schwa as a function of the number of consonants in the sequence (Three Consonants Rule by Grammont 1894) and of speech style. We also assess the role of schwa on low-level adjacency effects such as final devoicing and regressive voicing assimilation. We conclude that word-final schwa is correlated with ease of production, with careful speech more than casual speech, and that its presence is highly correlated with less adjacency effects – as if it acts as a shield blocking consonant alterations, thus facilitating the mapping between surface form and underlying form.; Résumé. Le schwa est une voyelle faible ou réduite notée [ə] alternant avec zéro et restreinte aux syllabes non-accentuées. En français standard, ilpeut faire surface à l’intérieur ou en fin de mot. Nous proposons ici une étude du schwa final de mot exclusivement, en particulier par le prisme dela question du schwa final en tant que « lubrifiant phonétique » (Purse 2019). Le schwa final est-il réellement un lubrifiant ? Joue-t-il seulement un rôle sur le plan exclusivement phonétique ? Pour répondre à ces questions, nous avons utilisé trois très grands corpus du français (plus de 110 heures de discours) pour établir la présence du schwa final selon les contraintes phonotactiques (la loi des trois consonnes, Grammont 1894) et le style de parole, mais aussi son rôle sur les phénomènes d’adjacence de bas niveau que sont le dévoisement final et l’assimilation régressive de voisement en français standard. Nous concluons que le schwa final est en effet corrélé au nombre de consonnes dans la séquence, et au style de parole ; de surcroît, sa présence est significativement corrélée à beaucoup moins d’effets d’adjacence – comme s’il jouait le rôle de bouclier, facilitant l’adéquation entre forme de surface et forme sous-jacente.

International audience; The Human Beatbox is a recent vocal technique involving the vocal apparatus to imitate musical instruments or electronic sounds. It is acoustically and physiologically described. Musically speaking, between original and beatboxed (imitated) muted trumpets, bass drums, hi-hat and snare drums, the oscillograms, melodic curves, spectrograms and spectral slopes show clear analogies. In addition, the notation of percussion used by beatboxers accounts for analogies between these imitated instruments and certain consonants of the world’s languages: this analogy can be quantifiable, for example by a lower intensity and a more concentrated energy in low frequencies for the beatboxed bass drum compared to the beatboxed snare drum, such as [p] and [t] respectively. Our aerodynamic analyzes showed that the production of beatboxed percussions were similar to ejective consonants for the beatboxed bass drum (in particular vocal folds closure just before the explosion), implosive for the snare drum (notably inhaled air before the explosion), and clicks for the beatboxed hi-hat (including decreasing and increasing nasal air flow). The larynx is solicited as a vibrator and articulator; its components are used independently. The lips and tongue also participate in the production of these beatboxed sounds, thus located between music and speech.; Technique vocale impliquant l’appareil vocal pour imiter des instruments de musique ou des sons électroniques, le Human Beatbox est décrit acoustiquement et physiologiquement. Musicalement parlant, entre les trompettes bouchées, grosses caisses, Charleston et caisses claires originaux et imités, les oscillogrammes, courbes mélodiques, spectrogrammes et pentes spectrales montrent plusieurs ressemblances. En outre, la notation des percussions utilisées par les beatboxeurs rend compte d’analogies entre celles-ci et certaines consonnes des langues du monde, analogies quantifiables par exemple par une intensité plus faible et une énergie plus concentrée dans le grave pour la grosse caisse que pour la caisse claire beatboxées, comme [p] et [t] respectivement. Nos analyses aérodynamiques ont montré que la production de percussions beatboxées s’apparentait à celle de consonnes éjectives pour la grosse caisse beatboxée (notamment fermeture des plis vocaux juste avant l’explosion), implosives pour la caisse claire (notamment flux d’air inhalé avant le bruit d’explosion), et de clics pour la Charleston beatboxée (notamment débit d’air nasal décroissant puis croissant). Le larynx est sollicité comme vibrateur et articulateur ; ses composants sont utilisés de manière indépendante. Les lèvres et la langue participent également à la production de ces sons beatboxés, ainsi situés entre musique et parole.

Mainstream approaches to the typology of reported discourse have been based on the notion of a direct-indirect continuum: reported speech constructions are traditionally analyzed as conforming to or deviating from the “ideals” of European direct and indirect speech. This study argues that continuum-based approaches fail to distinguish between two dimensions of variation that are systematically discriminated in a number of African languages and should therefore be treated separately. First, different constructions can be recruited for speech reporting, ranging from paratactic to subordinate structures. Second, languages differ in the way pronouns in speech reports are interpreted. In European languages two different deictic strategies are associated with different syntactic types of speech report (‘indirect’ and ‘direct’ deixis is correlated with subordination and parataxis, respectively). In Kakabe, we argue, the choice of pronominal values is independent of the construction’s syntax. Dissociating the construction’s structural properties from the behavior of indexicals allows us to describe the Kakabe strategies of speech reporting as well as account for the seemingly puzzling behavior of reported commands. Our data shows that speech reporting strategies of Kakabe should be treated as a type in its own right: a type characterized by loose syntax and flexible pronominal indexicality.

At the babbling stage, the syllable does not have the temporal characteristics of adult syllables because of the infant's limited oro-motor skills. This research aims to further our knowledge of syllable duration and temporal variability and their evolution with age as an indicator of the development of articulatory skills. The possible impact of syllable position, as well as that of type of intrasyllabic associations and intersyllabic articulatory changes on these parameters has also been tested. Oral productions of 22 French infants were recorded monthly from 8 to 14 months. 11 261 Consonant-Vowel (CV) syllables were annotated and temporally analyzed. The mean duration varied according to syllable position, but not to the intrasyllabic or intersyllabic articulatory changes. Moreover, the syllable duration decreased significantly from the age of 10 months onwards, whereas the temporal variability remained the same.

International audience; Naturalistic data are a useful source for language acquisition research. Recently, the importance of denser corpora has been emphasized in order to capture an accurate picture of child language development. However, working with large amount of data raises resources issues, since it is time-consuming to record and to transcribe. In this article, we focus on the "ideal" duration of a naturalistic recording in order to be considered as a representative sample of children's linguistic behaviors to observe the acquisition of words and sounds. In conclusion, we suggest that 30 minutes of recording may be enough to capture these specific developments.; Les données naturalistes sont une ressource utile pour la recherche en acquisition du langage. Récemment, l'emphase a été mise sur l'importance de corpus plus denses afin de rendre compte de façon précise du développement du langage chez l'enfant. Cependant, travailler avec de grandes quantités de données soulève des problèmes de ressources, étant donné le coût en temps de l'enregistrement et de la transcription. Dans cet article, nous traitons de la durée idéale d'un enregistrement naturaliste, pour que ce dernier soit considéré comme un échantillon représentatif des comportements linguistiques des enfants afin d'observer l'acquisition des mots et des sons. Certains de nos résultats suggèrent que 30 minutes d'enregistrement peuvent suffire pour rendre compte de ces développements spécifiques, mais ces résultats sont discutés par rapport à ce que pourrait être une session idéale.

International audience; We present a multidimensional acoustic report describing variation in speech productions on data collected from 500 francophone adult speakers (20 to 93 y.o.a.) as a function of age. In this cross-sectional study, chronological age is considered as a continuous variable while oral productions, in reading and speech-like tasks, are characterized via 22 descriptors related to voice quality, pitch, vowel articulation and vocalic system organization, time-related measures and temporal organization, as well as maximal performances in speech-like tasks. In a first analysis, we detail how each descriptor varies according to the age of the speaker, for male and female speakers separately. In a second analysis, we explore how chronological age is, in turn, predicted by the combination of all descriptors. Overall, results confirm that with increasing age, speakers show more voice instability, sex-dependent pitch changes, slower speech and articulation rates, slower repetition rates and less complexity effects in maximal performance tasks. A notable finding of this study is that some of these changes are continuous throughout adulthood while other appear either at old age or in early adulthood. Chronological age appears only moderately indexed in speech, mainly through speech rate parameters. We discuss these results in relation with the notion of attrition and with other possible factors at play, in an attempt to better capture the multidimensional nature of the notion of “age”.

Non modale (non neutre), la voix craquée se manifeste aux niveaux segmental et suprasegmental des langues. Elle revêt également des fonctions pragmatiques, stylistiques, sociolinguistiques et extralinguistiques. Si sa prévalence est attestée en anglais américain, elle est plus rare en français. Lors de lectures en tandem linguistique entre étudiant.e.s anglophones et francophones, la voix craquée de chaque langue parlée évolue-t-elle ? Pour cette étude pilote par 9 paires –un.e anglophone et un.e francophone–, le nombre et la durée des occurrences de voix craquée varient-ils en fonction de la langue parlée (anglais, français), de son statut (L1/L2), du locuteur, des contextes segmentaux et suprasegmentaux ?Après leur annotation manuelle, la fréquence et la durée des occurrences de voix craquée ont été calculées chez 9 femmes francophones et 9 anglophones (8 femmes, un homme), étudiants en licence.Ces occurrences sont plus fréquentes chez les anglophones dans les deux langues que chez leurs homologues francophones (transfert dans la production de la voix craquée de l’anglais vers le français pour les anglophones). Elles sont plus nombreuses en anglais qu’en français chez les francophones (effet des trois mois d’interaction) avec une importante variabilité inter-sujets. Les durées relatives des occurrences de voix craquée des francophones sont identiques d’une langue à l’autre, et plus courtes en français qu’en anglais chez les anglophones. La voix craquée peut porter sur un segment, la fin des mots prosodiques et des groupes intonatifs (longueur plus importante dans ce dernier cas). En français se produisent également des glottalisations aux hiatus, surtout chez les anglophones.Cette étude est un premier pas vers la recherche de l’effet de l’interaction sur la voix craquée. Ces analyses en lecture devront être complétées par celles des productions spontanées de nos locuteurs. Creaky voice is a non-modal (non-neutral) speech feature occurring both at the segmental and suprasegmental levels of languages. It also performs paralinguistic, stylistic, sociolinguistic and extra-linguistic functions. It has been reported as prevalent in (especially American) English but it is rarely described in French.During tandem exchanges between native-French speakers and native-English speakers, does voice quality found in each of the 2 languages spoken evolve in the course of the interactions? In this pilot study of read speech by 9 French/English tandem pairs (undergraduate Francophone and Anglophone students paired up), how do the number and duration of creaky occurrences vary according to: the language spoken (French or English), the language status (L1 or L2), the speaker, and the segmental or suprasegmental contexts?Creaky occurrences were manually annotated. Their frequency and duration were calculated for the 9 native French female speakers and the 9 native English speakers (eight women, one man).They were found to be more frequent among the Anglophones (in both languages) than their Francophone counterparts (transfer of creaky voice production from English to French for Anglophones), and more frequent when the Francophones spoke in English rather than French (after 3 months of interaction), with a high degree of inter-speaker variability. Moreover, the relative durations of creaky occurrences were similar in both languages spoken by the Francophones, while for the Anglophones, they were shorter in French than in English. The scope of creaky voice can be a segment, the end of stress groups, or whole intonational units (with longer occurrences). In French, glottalisation may also occur at a hiatus, especially when produced by Anglophones.This pilot study is a first step in the research of how speech interaction affects voice quality. The results obtained from read speech will have to be compared to the analysis of spontaneous speech produced by these same speakers.

International audience; Past results have suggested that initial strengthening (IS) effects target the contrastive phonetic properties of segments, with a maximization of acoustic contrasts in initial position of strong prosodic domains. Here, we investigate whether IS effects translate into a better acoustic discriminability within the French oral vowels system. Discriminability is assessed on the basis of classification results of two types of classifiers: a linear discriminant analysis (LDA) based on the four formants frequencies, and a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) based on spectrograms. The test set includes 720 exemplars of /i, y, e, ɛ, a, x, u, o, ɔ/ (with /x/=/ø, oe/) produced in a labial context, either in intonational phrase initial (IPi) or word initial (Wi) position. Classifiers were trained using a set of 4500 vowels extracted from a large read speech corpus. Results show a better discriminability of vowels (overall better classification rate) in IPi than in Wi with the two methods. Less confusion in IPi is found between rounded and unrounded, and between back and front vowels, but not between the vowels along the four-way height contrast. Less confusion between peripheral and central vowels also expresses a maximization of contrasts within the acoustic space in IPi position.

What is the status of schwa in Tashlhiyt? How does it pattern at the segmental and suprasegmental levels? This paper studies these questions by examining the frequencies with which schwa is inserted in different segmental contexts, and by exploring the nature of the interaction between schwa insertion and prosodic prominence. The results show the coexistence of two types of schwa in the language: a transitional schwa and a prosodically triggered schwa. The former is ignored by the phonological system of the language; its occurrence depends solely on the phonetic characteristics of the adjacent consonants. The latter surfaces whenever a prosodically prominent feature does not attach to a vowel or sonorant already present within the word. Both schwas are argued to be manifestations of a more general principle governing the coordination pattern of consonant sequences in Tashlhiyt.

International audience; The first description of voice quality production in forty years, this book provides a new framework for its study: The Laryngeal Articulator Model. Informed by instrumental examinations of the laryngeal articulatory mechanism, it revises our understanding of articulatory postures to explain the actions, vibrations and resonances generated in the epilarynx and pharynx. It focuses on the long-term auditory-articulatory component of accent in the languages of the world, explaining how voice quality relates to segmental and syllabic sounds. Phonetic illustrations of phonation types and of laryngeal and oral vocal tract articulatory postures are provided. Extensive video and audio material is available on a companion website. The book presents computational simulations, the laryngeal and voice quality foundations of infant speech acquisition, speech/voice disorders and surgeries that entail compensatory laryngeal articulator adjustment, and an exploration of the role of voice quality in sound change and of the larynx in the evolution of speech.

International audience; The article examines the Universal Dependencies (UD) annotation scheme. The UD project is an international initiative to produce treebanks of the world's languages, whereby the treebanks have been annotated in a cross-linguistically consistent manner. A central aspect of the UD annotation scheme is its analysis of function words. The scheme advocates subordinating function words to content words. This article discusses linguistic and practical motivations behind the UD decision to subordinate function words to content words. It demonstrates that UD choices in this area are not supported linguistically. At the same time, the near convertibility of the UD treebanks to a more linguistically motivated annotation format means that the UD initiative remains of great value to linguistics in general.

This paper focuses on two types of voiceless nasal sounds in Xumi, a Tibeto-Burman language: (i) the voiceless aspirated nasals // [] and // [], and (ii) the voiceless nasal glottal fricative []. We provide a synchronic description of these two types of sounds, and explore their similarities and differences. Xumi voiceless nasal consonants are described with reference to the voiceless nasal consonants // and // in Burmese and Kham Tibetan because Burmese voiceless nasals are the best described type of voiceless nasals, and are therefore used as a reference point for comparison; voiceless nasals in Kham Tibetan, which is in close contact with Xumi, represent a characteristic regional feature. The synchronic description is based on acoustic and aerodynamic measurements (the total duration of the target phonemes, the duration of the voiced period during the target phonemes, mean nasal and oral flow). Our study (i) contributes to a better understanding of voiceless nasals as a type of sound, (ii) provides a first-ever instrumental description (acoustic and aerodynamic) of the voiceless nasal glottal fricative [], as attested in a number of Tibeto-Burman languages of Southwest China, and (iii) suggests a possible phonetic basis for the observed dialectal and diachronic variation between voiceless nasals and [] in some Tibeto-Burman languages.

Nous discutons de l’importance d'intégrer les résultats des recherches récentes en matière de prosodie et d'intonation dans l'élaboration des descriptions de référence actuelles et contextualisées destinées à l'enseignement du français L2. Nous nous focalisons sur la nature du groupe accentuel, ses rapports avec le phrasé prosodique et le rôle des contours mélodiques. Nous confrontons cette analyse avec les résultats des recherches consacrées à l'acquisition de la prosodie du français en tant que L2. Notre objectif est de renouer les liens entre la recherche en phonologie expérimentale et la didactique de l’intonation du français. We discuss the results of recent research on experimental phonology and their integration into modern and contextualized grammars for students of L2 French. This paper focuses on the basic properties of Accentual Phrases in French, their relations with prosodic phrasing, and the description of melodic contours. We illustrate how such notions are being investigated within the field of second language acquisition. Our goal is to stress the importance of integrating new findings of experimental phonology into teaching practices of French as an L2.

We propose a new approach to characterize cross-linguistic differences in the rhythmic structure of speech utterances by studying the degree of coordination between the production of syllables and the production of prosodic prominence at the level of the word. With this approach we compare languages traditionally considered as stress-timed (English and German) and syllable-timed (French and Italian), as well as a language that on the basis of phonological considerations does not seem to belong to either class (Polish). We analyzed recorded narrations elicited with the Pear Story technique from 26 speakers (on average 5 per language) under two elicitation conditions. The results suggest that processes underlying the production of syllables and those underlying the production of prosodic prominence are more tightly coordinated in the Germanic languages analyzed than in Romance languages. The status of Polish on the other hand is more ambiguous because while its results differ from Romance languages, the differences depend on the condition of elicitation. Overall our results suggest that the coordination between syllable production and prominence production is a pertinent dimension for the discrimination of the rhythmic characteristics of languages.

The project Breaking the Unwritten Language Barrier (BULB), which brings together linguists and computer scientists, aims at supporting linguists in documenting unwritten languages. In order to achieve this we develop tools tailored to the needs of documentary linguists by building upon technology and expertise from the area of natural language processing, most prominently automatic speech recognition and machine translation. As a development and test bed for this we have chosen three less-resourced African languages from the Bantu family: Basaa, Myene and Embosi. Work within the project is divided into three main steps: 1) Collection of a large corpus of speech (100 h per language) at a reasonable cost. For this we use standard mobile devices and a dedicated software— Lig-Aikuma . After initial recording, the data is re-spoken by a reference speaker to enhance the signal quality and orally translated into French. 2) Automatic transcription of the Bantu languages at phoneme level and the French translation at word level. The recognized Bantu phonemes and French words will then be automatically aligned. 3) Tool development . In close cooperation and discussion with the linguists, the speech and language technologists will design and implement tools that will support the linguists in their work, taking into account the linguists’ needs and technology's capabilities.

International audience; This paper presents acoustic and articulatory data from prevocalic /r/ in the non-rhotic variety of English spoken in England, Anglo-English. Although traditional descriptions suggest that Anglo-English /r/ is produced using a tip-up tongue configuration, ultrasound data from 24 speakers show similar patterns of lingual variation to those reported in rhotic varieties, with a continuum of possible tongue shapes from bunched to retroflex. However, the number of Anglo-English speakers using exclusively tip-up variants is higher than that reported in American English across all phonetic contexts. It is generally agreed that English /r/ may be labialised, but the exact contribution of the lips has yet to be explored. Lip camera data reveal significantly more lip protrusion in bunched tongue configurations than retroflex ones. These results indicate that the differing degrees of lip protrusion may contribute to maintaining a stable acoustic output across the different tongue shapes. An articulatory-acoustic trading relation between the sublingual space and the degree of lip protrusion is proposed. Finally, we suggest that Anglo-English /r/ has a specific lip posture which differs from that of /w/. We relate the development of such a posture to Anglo-English speakers' exposure to labiodental variants and to the pressure to maintain a perceptual contrast between /r/ and /w/.

WOS: 000452581300023 The aims of the study are to investigate acoustic, aerodynamic and supralaryngeal properties of the voicing contrast in Turkish and to better understand the relation between these factors in the maintenance and inhibition of phonetic voicing. For this purpose, simultaneous recordings were carried out using electropalatography, a piezoresistive pressure transducer and a microphone for six speakers of Turkish. The voiced /d, d3/ and voiceless /t, t integral/ target sounds occurred in word-initial position in intervocalic context. Single time points were selected to study the voicing contrast and its corresponding properties. The most pronounced differences between voiced and voiceless consonants were the relative voicing during closure and the velocity maximum of intraoral pressure (Pio). Phonologically voiced stops showed a relatively long voicing portion, a negative VOT (for /d/) and a slower rise in Pio. Voiceless stops were realized with less voicing, positive VOT (for /t/) and a steep intraoral pressure rise. However, differences were not found for tongue-palatal contact patterns at full closure. The analysis of mutual dependence between articulatory and aerodynamic measures through Generalized Additive Mixed Model (GAMM) showed a linear relation between the two measures in voiced stops and a nonlinear relation for the voiceless. These results are discussed in light of laryngeal-oral coordination and cavity enlargement. Moreover, the different methodological approaches and their benefits are considered. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Council of Higher Education in Turkey; Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF, Germany) [01UG1411]; Leibniz Association (Germany); French government [ANR-10-LABX-0083, ANR-11-LABX-0036, ANR-16-CONV-0002]; Excellence Initiative of Aix-Marseille University (A*MIDEX) We thank our informants for participating in the experiment, Joerg Dreyer for technical expertise and Olivia Maky for proofreading. We also thank Mark Tiede for invaluable MATLAB scripts he shared with us and the maintainer Mark's Speechblog for the Praat scripts. This research has been supported by the Council of Higher Education in Turkey to Ozlem Unal-Logacev and by a grant (01UG1411) from the Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF, Germany) as well as the Leibniz Association (Germany) to Susanne Fuchs. Leonardo Lancia's work, carried out within the Labex EFL (ANR-10-LABX-0083) and BLRI (ANR-11-LABX-0036) and the Institut Convergence ILCB (ANR-16-CONV-0002), has benefited from support from the French government, managed by the French National Agency for Research (ANR), under the program "Investissements d'Avenir" and the Excellence Initiative of Aix-Marseille University (A*MIDEX). We thank all researchers who have been spending enormous time and efforts in developing various tools for the general research community for free. Without their continuous work, our study would not have been possible in such a time period.

Article sous presse, non encore inscrit dans un volume ou un numéro: paru en ligne le 25 mars 2019; International audience; Purpose. Several perceptual scales have been developed to assess voice quality in dysphonic voices, among which the Grade Roughness Breathiness Asthenia Strain and a Rate of Dysphonia scale is probably the most frequently used. However, this clinical tool has not been properly validated with a normophonic population yet. The aim of the present study was to provide a first set of reference data gathered from a normal population, to serve as a basis of comparison for vocologists and laryngologists working with French-speaking patients. A second goal was to investigate the influence on this normal voice dataset, of variables known to affect perceptual judgments of pathological voice.Material and methods. Sustained vowels and sentences produced by 80 healthy, normophonic French native speakers were perceptually assessed by a panel of 18 raters (nine students, nine experts) using the Grade Roughness Breathiness Asthenia Strain and a Rate of Dysphonia scale. Results. The average overall grade was close to 1 on the (0 to 3) scale, questioning the notion of “normal” voice as opposed to dysphonic voice. Rating reliability as well as perceptual scores were affected by task-, speaker-, and listener-related factors: speech stimuli led to better rating reliability and were judged less severely than voice stimuli; experts were slightly more reliable and less severe than students; older speakers were unanimously considered as more dysphonic. Multiple interactions between these factors were observed, confirming the multidimensional nature of voice quality.

International audience; Interactions between speech style and coarticulation are investigated by examining local, non-local, anticipatory and carryover contextual effects on vowels in two French corpora of conversational and journalistic speech. C-to-V coarticulation is analyzed on 22 k tokens of /i, E, a, u, ɔ/(/E/=/e, ɛ/) 50-to-80 ms long. Contextual effects are measured as F2 changes in relation to the adjacent consonant (alveolar vs. uvular) in CV1 and V1C sequences. V-to-V coarticula-tion is analyzed on 33 k V1C(C)V2 sequences with V1 = /e, ɛ, o, ɔ, a/ falling within the same range of duration, and V2 either high/mid-high or low/mid-low. Contextual effects are measured as F1 changes as function of V2 height. Results show more local C-to-V coarticulation in conversational than in journalistic speech, as previously found for other languages. Interestingly, this interaction is clearer for all vowels in V1C, whereas coarticulation in CV1 is affected by style for non-high vowels only. V-to-V coarticulation is also found in both corpora but is modulated by style only for mid-front vowels and in the opposite direction (i.e. more overlap in journalistic than in conversational speech). Findings are interpreted in light of dynamic models of speech production and of a phono-logical account of French V-to-V harmony.

International audience

International audience; The status of covarying features to sound contrasts is a long-standing issue in speech: are they deliberately controlled by the speakers, or are they contingent automatic effects required by the defining features? We address this question by drawing parallels between the way gemination is implemented in spoken language and the way it is rendered in whistled speech. Audio materials were collected with five Berber whistlers in Morocco. The spoken and whistled data were composed of pairs of words contrasting singletons to geminates in different word positions. Compared to spoken forms, whistling, while adapting to the specific constraints imposed by the medium, transposes the basic strategies used in normal speech. As in normal speech, the primary and most salient acoustic attribute differentiating whistled singletons and geminates is closure duration. But duration is not used alone. Covarying secondary attributes are conveyed which may serve to enhance the primary correlate by contributing additional properties increasing the distance between the two lexical categories. These enhancing correlates may take on distinctive function in cases where the primary correlate is not implemented. This is, for instance, the case of higher frequency values in word-initial position where duration differences cannot be acoustically implemented using whistled speech.

International audience; This study concerns the rhythmic transfer of Mandarin Chinese to French in the context of French as a Foreign Language learning. The rhythm of French spoken sentences produced by ten Chinese-speaking learners at an intermediate-advanced French level, is compared with that of their Mandarin Chinese productions, and with the rhythm of the same French sentences produced by native subjects. Acoustically, quantitative measures of rhythm show significant differences between the rhythmic patterns of Mandarin Chinese and French produced by Chinese subjects. The values of rhythmic measures applied to French as a foreign language are closer to those applied to native French, which is in contradiction with the results of the perceptual study according to which the rhythmic transfer of Mandarin Chinese to French can be identified by eight native speakers of French. The disparity between acoustics and perception casts doubt on the use of rhythmic measures in this rhythmic transfer study.; Cette étude concerne le transfert rythmique du chinois mandarin au français dans le cadre de l'apprentissage du Français Langue Étrangère. Le rythme de phrases françaises produites par dix apprenants sinophones de niveau de français intermédiaire-avancé, est comparé avec celui de leurs productions en chinois mandarin et celui en français produit par des natives. Acoustiquement, les mesures quantitatives du rythme mettent en lumière la différence significative entre les patterns rythmiques du chinois mandarin et du français produit par les sujets sinophones. Les valeurs des mesures rythmiques appliquées au français langue étrangère sont plus proches de celles appliquées au français natif, ce qui est en contradiction avec les résultats de l'étude perceptive selon lesquels le transfert rythmique du chinois mandarin au français peut être identifié par huit locuteurs natifs du français. La disparité entre acoustique et perception met en doute l'emploi de ces mesures dans cette étude sur le transfert rythmique. Abstract. Rhythmic transfer from Mandarin Chinese to French in the learning of French as a foreign language: acoustics and perception. This study concerns the rhythmic transfer of Mandarin Chinese to French in the context of French as a Foreign Language learning. The rhythm of French spoken sentences produced by ten Chinese-speaking learners at an intermediate-advanced French level, is compared with that of their Mandarin Chinese productions, and with the rhythm of the same French sentences produced by native subjects. Acoustically, quantitative measures of rhythm show significant differences between the rhythmic patterns of Mandarin Chinese and French produced by Chinese subjects. The values of rhythmic measures applied to French as a foreign language are closer to those applied to native French, which is in contradiction with the results of the perceptual study according to which the rhythmic transfer of Mandarin Chinese to French can be identified by eight native speakers of French. The disparity between acoustics and perception casts doubt on the use of rhythmic measures in this rhythmic transfer study.

This paper aims to refine our understanding of the speech mechanism and laryngeal features involved in the Korean lenis (/p t k/), aspirated (/ph th kh/), and fortis (/p' t' k'/) plosives. For this purpose we made measurements using a new noninvasive technique called external lighting and sensing photoglottography (ePGG) as well as intra-oral air pressure (Pio) above the glottis, airflow, and acoustic data. From simultaneous recordings of the experimental data, we were ableto quantify the laryngeal-oral coordination of glottal opening and a consonant release, and the covariance of airflow peak and duration of aspiration with glottal opening. The phasing of glottal opening and the 3-way phonation contrast occurs in the order, from early to late, fortis, lenis < aspirated plosives, and the glottal opening peak ranges from low to high in the same order. We also found that a Pio peak, the durations of a high Pio plateau and an oral closure, and F0 are independent of the glottal opening mechanism, varying in the order lenis < aspirated and fortis plosives. From these findings, we propose that the 2 independent patterns are accounted for by the articulator-based features [±spread glottis] and [±tense], respectively.

This paper investigates the effect of oral and nasal vowels on subglottal pressure. The vowels /i, e, a, o, u, o, œ, o/ were produced on a specific tone by two Belgian French speakers (male and female). The tone frequency was given to the speakers while producing the vowels through a set of headphones connected to a synthesizer. Three frequencies were given at comparable intensities (male speaker: A, C, E; female speaker: C, F, A). Both speakers produced the set of vowels in a mask, with the mouth at a quasi-constant distance from the microphone. In addition to the acoustic signal, the subglottal pressure was recorded by tracheal puncture with a needle inserted between the cricoid cartilage and the first tracheal ring. Measurements show that both speakers produced each of the vowels with stable F0 (2 Hz difference variation from the given tone). One interesting observation is that there is a substantial difference in subglottal pressure between oral and nasal vowels. Both speakers produced nasal vowels with a lower subglottal pressure when compared to oral vowels. Mean differences between both set of vowels were quantified at 2.15 hPa. Nasal vowels were found to have lower intensity than oral vowels.This paper investigates the effect of oral and nasal vowels on subglottal pressure. The vowels /i, e, a, o, u, o, œ, o/ were produced on a specific tone by two Belgian French speakers (male and female). The tone frequency was given to the speakers while producing the vowels through a set of headphones connected to a synthesizer. Three frequencies were given at comparable intensities (male speaker: A, C, E; female speaker: C, F, A). Both speakers produced the set of vowels in a mask, with the mouth at a quasi-constant distance from the microphone. In addition to the acoustic signal, the subglottal pressure was recorded by tracheal puncture with a needle inserted between the cricoid cartilage and the first tracheal ring. Measurements show that both speakers produced each of the vowels with stable F0 (2 Hz difference variation from the given tone). One interesting observation is that there is a substantial difference in subglottal pressure between oral and nasal vowels. Both speakers produced nasal vowels w...

International audience; According to accounts of inter-speaker coordination based on internal predictive models, speakers tend to imitate each other each time they need to coordinate their behavior. According to accounts based on the notion of dynamical coupling, imitation should be observed only if it helps stabilizing the specific coordinative pattern produced by the interlocutors or if it is a direct consequence of inter-speaker coordination. To compare these accounts, we implemented an artificial agent designed to repeat a speech utterance while coordinating its behavior with that of a human speaker performing the same task. We asked 10 Italian speakers to repeat the utterance /topkop/ simultaneously with the agent during short time intervals. In some interactions, the agent was parameterized to cooperate with the speakers (by producing its syllables simultaneously with those of the human) while in others it was parameterized to compete with them (by producing its syllables in-between those of the human). A positive correlation between the stability of inter-speaker coordination and the degree of f0 imitation was observed only in cooperative interactions. However, in line with accounts based on prediction, speakers imitate the f0 of the agent regardless of whether this is parameterized to cooperate or to compete with them.

International audience; In French intonation, a rising-falling contour (RF) has been described by many authors, but the characteristics of its phonetic realization as well at its phonological status remain controversial. Is its f0 movement temporally aligned earlier compared to the f0 movement of the simple rise (R)? Or is it scaled higher in the speaker's pitch range? Does it convey conviction and obviousness while the simple rise rather announces that the speaker has more to say? Firstly, the present study compared the phonetic implementation of RF and R in a corpus of naturally occurring conversation. Through the application of a Wavelet based Functional Mixed Model, we could detect significant differences between the shapes of the f0 curves corresponding to RF and R contours. Results show that RF and R mainly differ with 2 respect to the timing of the rise and the amplitude of the falling part. They thus support the claim that these characteristics are more important than the scaling of the pitch peak for the implementation of the contrast between RF and R. Secondly, the results of a forced choice identification task performed by naïve listeners show that they consistently associate the RF contour with the expression of conviction and obviousness and the R contour with the indication that the speaker has more to say.

This Illustration focuses on the variety of the Xumi language (旭米, /LPʂuketɕɜ/ or /EPʂu-hĩ ketɕɜ/) that is spoken in the upper reaches of the Shuiluo river (水洛河) in Shuiluo Township (水洛乡) (hereafter Upper Xumi). The township is located in Muli Tibetan Autonomous County (木里藏族自治县, smi li rang skyong rdzong in Written Tibetan, hereafter, WT), in the South-West of Sichuan Province (四川省) in the People's Republic of China.

International audience; This study examines whether the degree of vowel-to-vowel coarticulation in French (better known as " vowel height harmony " , V2-to-V1 henceforth) varies as a function of position in prosodic domain (i.e. IP initial vs. word-medial) and duration of V1 (i.e. short vs. long). Following the literature on the phonetics-prosody interface, segments at stronger edges are more resistant to coarticulatory effects induced by their neighboring vowel. While previous studies have mainly looked at non-local V-to-V coarticulation across prosodic boundaries/domains (e.g.,V#(C)V), here we look at V2-to-V1 coarticulation within an Intonational Phrase according to whether target V1 is in absolute initial position (#V1C(C)V2, e.g., #essaie [esɛ]/[ɛsɛ]-'try') or not (word-medial, e.g., épaissit [epɛsi]/[epesi]-'thikened'). The analyses are based on 33k words presenting possible V1C(C)V2 harmonic contexts, which were extracted from a corpus of French running speech. V2-to-V1 coarticulation is measured as the lowering of the first formant of the target V1 (/e, ɛ, o, ɔ/) in relation to the height of the V2 trigger /+high/ (i.e. mid-high and high) vs. /-high/ (i.e. mid-low and low). Results show an effect of prosodic position (but no effect of V1 duration) on V2-to-V1 coarticulation: V1 is more resistant to coarticulation when initial in an IP.

International audience

The present study investigates non-local temporal adjustments before an upcoming length contrast in Italian minimal pairs that differ only in the length of the medial consonant (e.g., geminate word palla "ball" vs singleton word pala "shovel"). This contrast is reportedly signaled by the duration of the singleton/geminate consonant and of the preceding vowel. Here, it is shown that the duration adjustment extends further to the word-initial consonant, e.g., the [p] in palla is significantly longer than that in pala (experiment 1). In experiment 2, an effect of syllable structure is ruled out, an unavoidable confound when comparing singleton and geminate words. The comparison of geminate words with cluster words (e.g., as palco "stage"), both of which have a closed first syllable, shows a similar lengthening. Implications for models of speech production are discussed. published

MonPaGe est un outil d’evaluation de la parole couvrant differents aspects de la production de la parole (voix, mobilite et precision articulatoire, prosodie, fluence, processus phonologiques, intelligibilite, etc.) et differents facteurs pouvant affecter cette production (complexite et longueur des sequences, types de son, position prosodique, contexte phonetique, parole continue ou isolee, etc.). Le temps de passation est adapte a la pratique clinique (15 minutes environ). L’analyse permet l’extraction semi-automatique d’indices perceptifs et acoustiques de la parole de patients adultes atteints de troubles moteurs de la parole. Ce protocole repond a un besoin criant d’outils normes et valides pour la langue francaise (Jan, 2007). Les batteries tels que la BECD (Auzou et Rolland-Monnoury, 2006) permettent une evaluation perceptivo-motrice de la dysarthrie (Darley et al., 1969), mais n’en offre pas une analyse acoustique directe. Le logiciel Vocalab 4 (Sicard E., et al., 2013 ; Sicard A. et Sicard E., 2014) et les applications du constructeur anglo-saxon KayPentax ® (ADSV, MDVP) restent uniquement dedies a l’analyse de la voix. Notre groupe de reflexion, compose d’orthophonistes, de phoneticiens et de psycholinguistes, a elabore un protocole d’evaluation comprenant des modules couvrant divers aspects de la parole : productions de [a] tenus, diadococinesies verbales, syllabes, pseudo-mots, phrases avec modulations prosodiques et lecture d’un texte. Le protocole est entierement informatise, tant au niveau de la passation des modules successifs (incluant l’enregistrement des productions du patient) que de la procedure d’evaluation, c’est-a-dire de la cotation qualitative (perceptifs ou visuels sur representations spectrographiques) et quantitative (mesures acoustiques) de caracteres deviants dans la parole. L’informatisation permet une meilleure standardisation des conditions de passation, des criteres d’evaluation et du pre-traitement des donnees recueillies. Cette presentation decrira le protocole et fera un point sur l’avancee de sa validation et normalisation aupres de differentes populations (sains et pathologiques).

Purpose Phonetic variation due to domain initial strengthening was investigated with respect to the acoustic and articulatory distinctiveness of vowels within a subset of the French oral vowel system /i, e, ɛ, a, o, u/, organized along 4 degrees of height for the front vowels and 2 degrees of backness at the close and midclose height levels. Method Acoustic and lingual ultrasound data were examined to characterize the production of vowels in intonational phrase initial position, compared with intonational phrase medial position, for 4 speakers. Results Formant values and estimates of lingual constriction location and degree differed according to the prosodic position independent of vowel duration, with a higher F1 for /a/, a higher F2 for /ɛ/, a backer constriction for /o/ and /a/ but a fronter constriction for /ɛ/, and a narrower constriction for /e, ɛ, u, o/ but a wider constriction for /a/. For most speakers, these variations enlarge the acoustic and/or articulatory distance between members of the pairs /e-ɛ/, /ɛ-a/, /u-o/, /i-u/, and /e-o/ but reduce the distinction within the pair /i-e/. Conclusions These changes in intonational phrase initial position are vowel dependent and frequently contribute to augmenting the phonetic distinctiveness between vowels contrasting along the height and backness dimensions.

This paper reports on our ongoing efforts to collect speech data in under-resourced or endangered languages of Africa. Data collection is carried out using an improved version of the Android application AIKUMA developed by Steven Bird and colleagues(1). Features were added to the app in order to facilitate the collection of parallel speech data in line with the requirements of the French-German ANR/DFG BULB (Breaking the Unwritten Language Barrier) project. The resulting app, called LIG-AIKUMA, runs on various mobile phones and tablets and proposes a range of different speech collection modes (recording, respeaking, translation and elicitation). LIG-AIKUMA'S improved features include a smart generation and handling of speaker metadata as well as respeaking and parallel audio data mapping. It was used for field data collections in Congo-Brazzaville resulting in a total of over 80 hours of speech. Design issues of the mobile app as well as the use of LIG-AIKUMA during two recording campaigns, are further described in this paper. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.

International audience; This article reports the results of a multiparametrical analysis of Mongolian Long Song, characterised by multiple ornamentation and shows the similarities between the laryngeal behaviour observed during these ornamentations and the compensatory gesture produced by patients after supracricoid partial laryngectomy. This study includes (1) a physiological analysis of videofiberscopic laryngeal data from a healthy Mongolian singer and from three non-singer French-speaking clinical patients; and (2) an acoustical analysis (fundamental frequency and intensity). For the singer, the fiberoptic analysis showed two main laryngeal behaviours in producing ornamentations: (1) 'lyrical' vibratos mobilising the entire laryngeal block; (2) 'Mongolian' trills with essentially supraglottic movements, the arytenoids being mobilised independently of the rest of the laryngeal block. Patients demonstrated similar aryepiglottic trilling to fulfil a function of voicing. The acoustic analysis showed that the fundamental frequency and the intensity were in phase for vibrato, contrary to the 'Mongolian' trills which were in opposite phase, underlying a change of laryngeal vibratory mechanisms.; Cet article rapporte les résultats d'une analyse multiparamétrique du Chant Long Mongol, caractérisé par de multiples ornementations. Il montre les similarités entre le comportement laryngé observé durant ces ornementations et le geste compensatoire produit par les patients après une laryngectomie partielle supracricoïdienne. Cette étude inclut (1) une analyse physiologique de données de vidéofibroscopie laryngée d'une chanteuse mongole en bonne santé, et de trois patients non chanteurs parlant le français; et (2) une analyse acoustique (fréquence fondamentale et intensité). Pour la chanteuse, l'analyse fibroscopique a montré deux principaux comportements laryngés dans la production d'ornementations: (1) vibrati "lyriques" mobilisant le bloc laryngé entier; (2) les trilles "mongols" avec essentiellement des mouvements supraglottiques, les aryténoïdes étant mobilisés indépendamment du reste du bloc laryngé. Les patients montrent une oscillation aryépiglottique similaire pour remplir la fonction de voisement. L'analyse acoustique a montré que la fréquence fondamentale et l'intensité sont en phase pour le vibrato, contrairement aux trilles "mongols" qui montrent une opposition de phase, révélant un changement sous-jacent de mécanisme vibratoire laryngé.

Lifespan changes in speech have mostly been documented with respects to children’s development, while little is known about its evolution throughout adulthood. More particularly our knowledge on the effect of aging on speech and voice is sparse. Changes have been found in voice quality [e.g., Xue & Hao, 2003], the speech rate has been described to slow down [e.g., Staiger et al. 2017), and pitch is said to raise for older males and to lower for older females [e.g., Harnsberger et al., 2008]. The present study aims to investigate the effect of aging on Vowelto_Vowel anticipatory coarticulation in French. This effect is tested according to vowel duration and to differences in regional varieties. Data from 240 speakers (half female) distributed across three age groups (20–45), (50–69), and (70–80) have been extracted from the MonPaGeHA database [Fougeron et al. 2018] which includes speakers from four regional varieties: France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Quebec. The influence of V2 (/a/ or /i/) on V1 (/a/) is measured as a lowering of F1 and a rise of F2. Results show that coarticulation and vowel duration varies with regional variety and that vowels of older speakers are lengthened. More interestingly, results show a reduction of coarticulation with age.

Distinctive features have long been involved in the study of spoken language, and in one form or another remain central to the study of phonological patterning within and across languages. However, their phonetic nature as well as their role in mental representation, speech production and speech processing has been a matter of less agreement. Many phoneticians consider features to be too abstract for the purposes of phonetic study, and have tended to explore alternative models for representing speech (e.g., gestures, prototypes, exemplars). Psycholinguists, too, have sometimes hesitated to integrate features into their models, often preferring to work with traditional phonetic categories, segments, or syllables. The resulting breach between the representational categories of phonology on the one hand and those of the experimental speech sciences on the other has tended to increase the gap between phonology, phonetics and psycholinguistics, challenging the underpinnings of the movement to reintegrate these approaches (Laboratory Phonology). Compounding this problem is the fact that much of the experimentalist's under- standing of features is still based on largely outdated theories of thirty or forty years ago, due in large part to the absence of accessible recent overviews of the subject. It would therefore seem useful to provide an up-to-date overview of the phonetic bases of distinctive feature theory as it is conceived at the present time. The papers collected in this issue emanate, for the most part, from a conference on the theme ''Phonetic Bases of Distinctive Features''heldattheCarre ́desSciences,MinisteﰀreDe ́le ́gue ́dela Recherche, Paris, on July 3, 2006. This conference gathered a number of specialists from several disciplines within linguistics and the speech sciences to exchange views on the phonetic bases of distinctive features from a variety of perspectives. The larger goal was to address current issues in feature theory and to take a step towards synthesizing recent advances in order to present a current ''state of the art'' of the field. These brief introductory remarks will attempt to lay out the theme as it was addressed by the conference participants.